Moreover, it was entirely foreseeable that this was merely Konohagakure's advance force.
A large number of reinforcements would certainly follow.
Before Iwagakure took in the Uchiha Clan and truly rose to prominence, even during Konohagakure's weakest period, it had still held onto the title of the Shinobi World's number one ninja village. Its military, economic, and political strength had all been undeniably top-tier!
To put it bluntly.
With full mobilization and without considering other defensive requirements, Konohagakure could easily raise an army of more than twenty thousand ninja!
That was an utterly terrifying number!
And that was far from its limit. Konohagakure had far more ninja clans than the other villages. If it was truly pushed to the brink and completely loosened its age restrictions, it could still recruit another three or four thousand ninja without difficulty!
That was why Shōji had always stressed that they needed to improve themselves and their village's overall strength in every possible aspect before launching the unification plan. Without that level of power, forcing unification would come at far too terrible a cost.
They absolutely could not think these ninja villages, especially Konoha, were made of clay!
The reason Shōji had not acted was that he had been waiting for Konoha, and even Obito and Nagato, to make their moves. But for now, the Akatsuki led by Obito and Nagato showed no sign of activity, or perhaps no concrete intelligence had arrived yet.
The situation was still just as expected. Konohagakure had thrown its full strength into supporting Sunagakure. As long as one's brain was functioning, no one who had seen Kumogakure's miserable state half a year ago could possibly allow Iwagakure to act so recklessly!
However, all of this was within Shōji's calculations.
The plan was steadily unfolding in the direction Shōji had